


Dark Crown

by Bhelryss



Series: fefemslashweek2018 [6]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/F, fireemblem femslash week day 6: lonely, plegian queen aversa hell yes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 13:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15365928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/pseuds/Bhelryss
Summary: FeFemslashWeek July Day 6: LonelyAversa's relationship with Flavia finds itself challenged by distance. They exchange letters, though, to keep them close.





	Dark Crown

Plegia has a new queen. The black iron that crowns her stands out against her white hair, and she smiles like impending danger and gestures like a sweet promise. Many in other countries are wary, knowing she had been a key aide to the man who’d nearly  _ ended _ the world, if Exalt Chrom and the Khans were right. It is...off putting, isn’t it? But...Exalt Chrom has vouched for her, and his tactician also, and the Khans. So they could not oppose the way Plegia had welcomed their daughter back into the government. 

She had the experience, the authority. What was left of the Church of Grima’s extremist hierarchy disavowed her, and that was a such a ringing endorsement to the rest of the world, to the terrified, leaderless citizenry, that her inauguration was swift and hurried. The most ostentatious gold ornamentations of the throne were left out, and Aversa rebuffed most of the little ones, content instead to be dressed in a manner she was accustomed to instead.

Aversa’s look had been stunning. Layered in purple and black, gold glinting around her waist and neck, as she walked up to her throne. Powerful strides, a sway to it that kept everyone’s eyes on her, instead of the council members who held the symbols of her authority. When it had been her turn to whirl to face those attending, she had held the gaze of Khan Flavia for a good long while. And then she had smirked, and turned her attention to the rest of the room as a whole.

And that was that. Queen of Plegia, allied with Ferox and Ylisse, utterly ignoring the continent of Valm. Plegia moved on, Plegia went on, and Aversa led the country quite well.

But, what had once been a battlefield romance had been stretched to nearly the point of breaking, or that was how Aversa viewed it. Where Flavia and Aversa had once been within a camp’s reach of each other, now they were nations apart. Aversa had resolved herself to letting that bond wither and die, had clenched her jaw and pushed the emotional response away. It was just the way of things, she reasoned. Not everything could have a happy ending.

The first letter hit her between the eyes like a hammer, like a kick to the gut. Breathless, Aversa trailed her finger across the scratch scrawl of an address. “To Queen Aversa, of Plegia,” in Flavia’s most careful handwriting. She turned it over, and broke the seal. Alone in her rooms, Aversa took the opportunity to fall into a seat at the edge of her bed, one hand holding the letter open and the other pressed to where her heart rested. The words are sweet, the way that practiced, final draft letters are. The sentiment is rough, the way that Flavia loves. 

It all boils down to “I miss you,” “I love you,” and “Wish you were here.” There’s even a segment in the middle that whispers, “I hope you haven’t whipped your council too hard, even if they are as incompetent as you were afraid of.” It’s enough to have Aversa breathless, wrong again in her pessimism. She’d thought that their love would die, over the distance. And she’d been wrong. Or maybe, not wrong yet, but she wouldn’t let that possibility hobble her.

Aversa immediately stood, and flew to her writing desk. There were missives and law propositions, and petitions there, but she swept them to the side, and propped Flavia’s letter up against the lamp glass as she searched for blank stationary. She paused, pen hovering above the inkwell, considering her words. With her practiced ease, she only burned through five different drafts of her letter (literally burned, her failed attempts reduced to ash so no one would ever know she had faltered) before she came up with a product that pleased her well enough.

Even so, she dithered for nearly three days (whether to send it, how to send it, was sending a reply back so soon desperate, all of these questions running up against her impeccable standards and stalling out just short of actualization) before entrusting her very personal letter to the right hands. And once it was sent, Aversa made a point of relaxing. It would take time before Flavia responded, after all, and she was not a lovestruck child waiting for her first love to take her by the hand. So she did her best to think nothing of it, to put it from her mind as she made ruling her country look easy. 

And then she got a reply. (And sent another letter, which got another reply, and so on for an entire year.)

The letter was hot in her pocket, and Aversa’s temper for the stupidities of her council of advisers (already tragically short, she would not suffer fools this high into her government) burned down into mere seconds. That day’s inadequacies grated at her very soul, the perceived failures in her support networks teeth-grindingly offensive, and she was overly relieved to call her day to an end. To have the space and the lack of company to allow herself to feel every emotion Flavia would inspire in her, without paying mind to the impression and image she cultivated so closely.

Reading the words soothed her heart, and eventually Aversa fell backwards onto her bed, holding the letter close. She missed Flavia with an aching depth. Words could only stem the longing for so long, after all. Aversa deeply wished Flavia could find an excuse to come visit, or that she could do the same. 

She longed to be kissed, after spending a year parted. Memories could only do so much, when she longed to be touched. At least she knew Flavia missed her just as sharply. The longing was clear between the words. And explicit  _ in _ the wording. “I have thought of you all this month,” Flavia wrote, “and I’ve missed your kisses. You were always so cunning, getting them from me when I was least expecting to give them. I haven’t found an acceptable excuse to come see you, but perhaps it is time we made up a more shallow excuse.

“I have longed to see you again.”

Tracing the signature fondly, keenly feeling the distance all over again, Aversa thought over the phrase, “more shallow excuse.” She  _ was _ cunning, and forward thinking. Anticipating needs, wants, and motivations was one of her greatest skills, one that she made seem like a gods given gift. Surely she could orchestrate something better than a shallow excuse. The mistake here, Aversa decided, was that they had been waiting for a  _ legitimate _ excuse to come together.

Limitations were for those without the ability to transcend them, and Aversa was more than able in this sense. She was a queen, with a council that was more stupid than it was helpful, with an exceptional ability for manipulation. She could find something that was not _exactly_ _legitimate_ but instead convincing. That was fully within her power, and she was a fool for not seeing it.

Her reply this time, a rather empty letter, was just one sentence. 

“Just wait for me, I will see you soon.”


End file.
